IGN has word on layoffs at Defiance and RIFT developer Trion
Worlds, having confirmed the cuts after initially reporting this as a rumor. Their original report stated as much as 80% of the company's
staff was let go, but Trion says this is "exaggerated" (though no numbers are
provided as a correction), and also says reports that employees were being
escorted from buildings and that some executives would not be receiving
severance are "100% false." Here's Trion's official statement:

To best
position Trion in a rapidly changing industry, we have reorganized our teams and
are expanding our free to play offering. With Defiance, we delivered a great
game that more than one million gamers registered to play and continue to enjoy.
As we progress from launch to ongoing development of the game, we are adjusting
our staffing levels to deliver new content and improved features. RIFT, and our
other titles in development, were unaffected by these changes. We are very much
looking forward to the free to play release of RIFT and are excited by the other
new titles currently in development.

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Warskull wrote on May 18, 2013, 03:00:It is because there is a perpetual influx of young people who want to make games because they think it will be a fun job. The megapublishers can hire them and pay them peanuts.

The industry in general has an immense disrespect for the people who make the games and a disrespect for talent. It is a major reason why you have so many mediocre games. People with experience all quit because you can't have a family (or life) while working in the industry.

Yeah, and that's just really, really fucked up. There should be a class in college when you're going for your game design or game programming degree, that's basically called "This Industry Fucking Sucks."

Seeing EA and its ilk continuously just shit all over young, naive people just because they can is pretty aggravating.

Creston

The US is strongly anti-union and there is that constant stream of young naive people, so I don't think it will stop any time soon. Just about the only thing that has a chance at bringing sanity to their workplace conditions would be the rise of indie titles. Even then it would be a longshot because the indie developers tend to be fairly small teams and don't hire like the megapublishers.